


threads of hope

by peterstank



Series: built from scraps [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BAMF Peter Parker, F/M, nat and peter are totally drinking buddies and that’s on periodt, they’re all messes in this one honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:29:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21590773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterstank/pseuds/peterstank
Summary: “Morgan,” he says, “it’s gonna be okay. No matter what, you’ll get through it—and if you need me—”She holds up the little Spider-Man toy attached to her backpack. “I press his belly.”“Right.”“Like the Pillsbury Dough Boy.”Peter rolls his eyes and kisses her forehead as the bell rings. “Okay, go on. Don’t burn the building down or anything.”Morgan looks back at him at least five times on the way inside and each time, he smiles. On the inside his stomach is in knots, which isridiculous.It’s kindergarten. He’sdonekindergarten. All they do is learn to write letters and sing about the rainbow and shit.She’ll befine.or: six months after tony and pepper get married, things have finally settled—until they haven’t.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: built from scraps [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1556035
Comments: 183
Kudos: 1128
Collections: Spider-Man Public Identity Reveal





	threads of hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wisterispidey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisterispidey/gifts).



> heyyy 
> 
> so i’m back on my bullshit. 
> 
> oopz.

  
So it’s like, totally stupid—like, really really dumb. But Ned can’t help it. 

He’s jealous. 

Not that there’s any valid reason to be. Peter is an adult now and has to do lame adult things like pay taxes and almost die all the time or whatever, which of course is understandable. Even if Peter’s assured him like, a million times over that he’s totally not avoiding Ned or pushing him away… it feels like, maybe just maybe, he’s lying. 

Which again, Ned understands.

It’s been five years. That’s like 44,000 hours. It’s two million, six-hundred and twenty-eight thousand _minutes_ that he lived and breathed while Ned was just dust or whatever. 

It’s lame but it makes sense. Peter had been a nerd like Ned when they were both sixteen. No one had given him the time of day, much less asked for selfies in the street (which happened once when they went for pizza and Ned’s mind was completely blown). 

Now he’s famous. Everyone loves him. He’s gonna go down in history books as one of the guys who invented actual, real-life time travel. He almost died to save the whole freaking _universe_ and it’s awesome, Ned is so proud he could burst… 

But he misses his friend. 

Maybe it’s selfish, maybe it’s stupid. No, it _definitely_ is. He should just get over it, befriend some other kid his age instead of trying to bust into the life of someone who’s moved on and let go. 

But then, like, if Peter had moved on why would he have devoted all of that time to reversing the Snap? And besides, he’d told Ned he’d missed him, he’d cried when he’d seen him again, right? 

But then they’d gone three weeks without so much as texting. They’d only crossed paths after he’d found out MJ had lost the literal, actual baby she’d been pregnant with—which is just, like, wild. Ned had brought sandwiches from Delmar’s like an _idiot_ but Peter had smiled and taken them anyway, because that’s what adults do when kids do stupid things.

And that’s what they are now: an adult and a kid. Ned is sixteen, he’s still in high school, he’s never been so much as kissed, and Peter is in a committed relationship with their old Decathlon captain. Last Ned had checked, they’d both been _terrified_ of MJ, not in love with her. 

It sucks. They no longer function as one singular entity. It’s not _Peter &Ned _anymore, it’s just lame-ass Ned Leeds who sits alone at lunch and doesn’t have any friends. 

Except…

Except during Decathlon practise (where there are two extra trophies in the case courtesy of Peter and MJ’s efforts during the Blip), Mr. Harrington is like, “Hey everyone shut up while I talk in my super monotonous voice about things no one cares about,” only _this time_ he actually has something to say. 

“I’m sorry, did I hear you right?” asks Flash, who _of course_ just _had_ to die with the rest of them. “Did you say that we’re going to SI on Friday?”

“ _Conditionally,_ ” Mr. Harrington corrects. “You’ll need a permission slip signed, obviously. But yes.”

“Are you _serious?_ ” Betty demands.

Abraham slaps his bell. “Why would he ever make something like this up? Have you ever once in your life seen this man crack so much as a knock-knock joke?”

“Mr. Michaels, what have we said about the bell?”

Abe glares. He slaps the bell. “If this is a prank, I’m never coming back to practise again. You can all drown at regionals.”

“It is not, I assure you, a joke. It would not be funny. Just like how hitting the bell isn’t funny. I’ve already had to replace them five times.”

Normally when Mr. Harrington is talking it’s like, totally boring and everyone wants to die, but right now Ned is _rapt._ He can’t even speak. He’s just numb everywhere. 

SI was nerd-cool back before the Snap, of course. He’d always been obsessed with the idea of interning there like Peter (and he’d completely flipped when he’d found out about _that_ ); but _now_ it’s like, _everyone-_ cool. Like how Apple used to be before Tony Stark took over and made everything energy-efficient and stuff. Everyone and their grandmother would die for a chance to go to the Tower. Cool shit is made there, the _Avengers_ used to live there, and the guy who saved the whole universe just so happens to run their R&D department. What’s not to like?

Which is why this totally doesn’t make sense and, like Flash is reading his mind or something (gross), he calls bullshit. 

“Nah, there’s no way. Like sure, Midtown is one of the top performing schools in the borough—thanks to yours truly—but nuh-uh. This has to be some kind of mistake.”

“I assure you, it’s not—”

“It’s _not_ ,” Betty insists, like Mr. Harrington hadn’t spoken at all. “ _Peter_ used to go here.”

“Exactly,” Ned tacks on because he’s finally remembered how to speak again. “He probably set the whole thing up.”

And Flash gets all flustered and disgusting like he does whenever Peter is mentioned, all, _we never hated each other it was just a really good inside joke_ ; Ned had heard he’d completely flipped his shit when he found out Peter was Spider-Man. A lot of people had, actually, and then they’d spent like a whole month _obsessing_ over it at school, and even now Ned _still_ hears them whispering about it in the hallways. Peter is like, if royalty had invaded their school and then announced they were the fucking Duke of Wherever-the-Hell. Or maybe it’s more like Jesus because he died for everyone’s sins and all. 

“Do you seriously think he would—”

And then Ned says something that makes all of their heads turn. He says, “I’ll ask him.”

And they just _stare,_ like he and Peter weren’t _best friends_ right in front of their faces for two whole years, like it’s totally shocking and unbelievable that Ned would have Peter’s number in his phone. It’s times like these which really infuriate Ned; they’d both been completely invisible together, but now he’s invisible on his own. 

It _sucks._

Flash says, “You do _not_ have Peter Parker’s number in your phone.”

And Ned rolls his eyes, does a quick flip through his contacts, and literally _calls Peter Parker right there in the middle of Decathlon practise._

Because, like, fuck Flash. 

“Ned? What’s up, man, I thought you’d still be at school? You’re not dying, are you? I swear to God if you’re dying—”

“Dude, relax, I’m not dying.”

“Oh, good. Did you get out early?”

“Uh,” everyone is staring, it’s totally silent, and Ned tells a teeny-tiny lie: “Yeah, I did.”

“Okay, well, I have the interns until four and then I have to go shopping because Harley used up, like, all of our eggs to bake this stupid fucking triple-tier cake, but if you want to come with we can binge-watch Brooklyn Nine-Nine after—I’ve missed like five episodes, so—”

“Oh my god, okay, that sounds _amazing,_ but I was actually calling about that SI field trip. Is it like, legit?”

Peter laughs. “Dude, I totally forgot to text you about that. It was actually Pep’s idea, but she roped me into it and now there’s this gigantic interactive tour that we set up. It’s mostly my department, but you’ll be able to see the training rooms and the old Avengers floor. Oh, and Bruce’s labs since he gave the O.K.”

And all Ned can say is, “ _Dude._ ”

And Peter is like, “I know, right? Oh, and I hope you don’t mind hanging out with a five year old because I have Morgan today.”

And that’s how Ned becomes cool.

* * *

“Hey, Buck?”

It happens sometimes: Bucky spaces out for minutes, even hours. Then he falls back into himself and it all comes back down on him like an avalanche, like that fucking ravine. He remembers the cold. Remembers being in it, being a _part_ of it. 

And Steve just stands there, patiently waiting. He’s usually able to gauge when Bucky wants to talk about something or not—like it’s written all over his face that he might break like a damn porcelain doll if Steve so much as _asks._

It’s slow-going this time. Bucky blinks. He manages to look at Steve who has one hand on Bucky’s cheek. The other is holding Bucky’s metal fingers, thumb stroking vibranium knuckles. Bucky can only feel the heat of the touch, but it’s comforting anyway. Grounding. 

“I’m okay,” Bucky promises, because that’s part of it too. Steve isn’t going to ask but he still needs to know or he’ll start to panic.

It’s part of his charm. 

“It’s late,” Steve tells him after a minute.

That doesn’t sound right. Bucky remembers it being morning. He remembers Steve filling up a thermos of black coffee and going off to run errands. Still Steve continues, “You wanna lie down?”

“No,” Bucky says, because he doesn’t. The whole day just slipped through his fingers and now, what, he’s supposed to sleep too? 

“Buck—”

Bucky stands up. He needs to move. His whole body aches from sitting so stiffly on the tile floor. 

Then Steve says “ _Bucky,_ ” like some folks say _sweetie,_ and his face is etched with pain, and Bucky doesn’t want to be a broken thing for someone to fix but God, it feels good to just be held sometimes. 

Steve wraps him up in his arms, one hand on the back of his head the way they used to do it when they were pretending to be brothers, when they’d press their foreheads together and say, _Try not to do something stupid for a few hours, huh?_ but this time, Steve is soft about it. He kisses Bucky’s forehead and cheeks and nose like it’s easy, like it’s the only thing he wants to be doing right now. 

“You wanna go out?”

“Coffee,” Bucky agrees. 

And so they go down to the small diner near their brownstone. It’s a little beat up, but it’s quiet this time of night and the overhead always plays Dorsey and Anka, Steve’s favorites. 

They get their coffee. Bucky douses his with sugar and cream. Steve drinks it black. Then Bucky fishes a cigarette out of his pocket and lights it, relaxing as his lungs fill up with smoke. 

They sit on the same side of the booth. Steve eyes the cigarette like he wants to take a drag.

He’s been trying so hard to quit. 

“Tony wants us to move into the Tower.”

“No.”

“That’s what I said,” Steve agrees, “but—”

“No.”

Steve sighs. “I don’t want to live there, either. I like our life. I like our home. _But—_ ”

“ _Steve—_ ”

“Would you shut the fuck up and listen?” Steve snaps, and Bucky laughs. “I’m just saying, I wouldn’t be averse to _visiting._ ”

Bucky throws his head against the back of the cracked vinyl seat and grunts. It’s not that he hates Stark. Actually, he’s pretty sure it’s the other way around, and what mentally stable person would want to subject themselves to an indefinite amount of time being treated like you’re a hostile? It’s not like he can _blame_ Stark, really. He’d… 

The Winter Soldier had, Bucky corrects. The _Asset._

Steve nudges him. “Buck.”

“Don’t let me fall again,” Bucky says suddenly, turning his head to look at Steve, _desperate_ (takemyhandtakemyhandtakemyhand). “Don’t you ever fucking let me fall.”

Steve frowns. “Bucky?”

Bucky doesn’t answer. Not with words, anyway. He just sags against Steve, puts his head on his shoulder and wraps his arms around Steve’s torso. Tucked against the window with the rain falling outside, he sinks a little deeper into _Bucky_ the way he does sometimes, like a house shifting and settling. 

Steve presses his lips to Bucky’s head and then his cheek just stays there, warm. He wraps himself around Bucky right back. “Do you wanna tell me?”

He didn’t before. He thinks maybe he does now, even if all he can taste is bile and all he can smell is blood. 

“I remembered. After the fall. I remembered that they—” his mouth twists. “They kept cutting away more and more. And there was this room with no windows, and the chair—” 

He stops. Shakes his head. “Fuck. I don’t know. Sorry I ruined the date, sweetheart.”

Steve snorts. “If this is what you call a date, we’re gonna have to up your standards.”

“I don’t know, seems pretty okay to me.”

“Lousy by my mark,” Steve argues. He’s smiling as Bucky draws back, all half-assed and lazy and sweet, and when he smooths Bucky’s hair away from his face it feels good, and when he kisses him it feels _right._ Then he says, “Drink your coffee before it gets cold, would you? Then we can go home and watch that stupid show you like.”

“Call the Midwife.”

“That’s the one.”

* * *

“I’m cashing in.”

Peter looks up from the research scattered around him, chow mein hanging from his mouth that he hastily chokes down. “What?”

“The favor you owe me,” Nat says, throwing herself onto the couch. “You’ve got the kids tomorrow because I’m beat.”

Peter slowly sets down his carton of food. “Favor?”

“You know, because I put up with your sorry ass for years and taught you everything you know.”

“Ha ha, funny. Also, _no._ I have the field trip thing.”

“Make Harley do it.”

Peter thinks about that. Chews and swallows. Then says, “No.”

“Why not?”

“He’ll blow up the building,” Peter says, “and contrary to popular belief, our insurance isn’t _that_ good.”

Nat rolls onto the floor and snatches his food away. “You’re a heathen.”

“I’m fine with that.”

She glares because she isn’t getting the kind of reaction out of him that she wants, and _fuck,_ Peter thought he was doing a little better than that. No way on God’s green Earth did he think he’d be able to fool her, but mislead her? Maybe. 

“What’s wrong with you?”

The food solidifies in his stomach. He sits back and considers her, which puts her at unease in a barely perceptible way: shoulders squaring slightly, jaw working, eyes dark. 

“So you know how I died?”

Nat sets down the carton. “Hard to forget.”

“Yeah, well,” he frowns. “I need you to tell me everything you remember about the Red Room.”

_That_ takes her by surprise, and him too, sort of. 

But it’s been bugging him lately. There are a thousand questions humming in the back of his mind and no matter what, he just can’t seem to shake any of them. It’s been slow going, piecing back together what he’d seen during his time in the… in-between, or whatever. But he remembers most of it now. He remembers Mary. 

Nat, for her part, grows even more guarded. Her face shutters up. “I’m sorry, I must have heard you wrong. Did you actually just casually ask me to unearth my childhood traumas?” 

Peter sighs. “I wouldn’t if I weren’t desperate—”

“Is this about Barnes?”

Peter stills. “No…?”

Nat frowns. “Then what—?”

“Oh my god, wait, Bucky was in the Red Room with you?!” Peter demands—which, okay fair, he’d already known, but she’d be suspicious otherwise. “Does Steve know about that?!” 

“Probably not, but—”

“ _Natasha._ ”

“ _Peter,_ ” she retorts, and then socks his arm. “What do you need to know?”

“Everything you can get on Petrov.” 

And if he thought she was closed off before, it’s nothing compared to the look she gives him at that: seeping with suspicion and confusion and surprise. She doesn’t like being taken off guard like this. 

“How the hell…?”

“Remember how I died?” He repeats, pointedly. 

Nat pauses. “Why do you need to know about Petrov?”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out for yourself,” Peter dismisses. He seriously doesn’t feel like getting into it at… three in the morning on a Thursday night. Or, well, Friday technically. “It’s not a big deal, I just—”

“Bullshit, it’s a huge deal.”

Peter shoots her a deadpan look. “Just… please? Because you love me?”

It’s all it takes for her to soften. “You make me sick, you know that?” 

* * *

“I don’t need it.”

“And yet, you absolutely do.”

_“No,_ ” Morgan argues for (roughly) the millionth time. “I already know how to spell and how to write, and I know all kinds of math—”

“Morgan,” Peter says, “we’ve discussed this ad nauseum. You’re going.”

Her face scrunches up over her cereal bowl. “What does ad nauseum mean?”

“Oh, you don’t know? Looks like someone needs school.” 

Morgan groans all dramatic like he’s just sentenced her to death. In a way she’s not wrong. He’d noticed her picking up words at a young age and, with a little prodding and help, she was reading pretty well by three. At four, she started with the math. Blew through arithmetic quicker than he could ever believe and started on _actual fucking algebra_ —yes, a five year old, _algebra_ —only a few months ago. Because she was bored. 

Then she’d found a textbook on differential equations, nosed through it like a little booger, and he’d come home and found her on his bed taking gradients of nonlinear functions. 

But she needs school. He and Pepper had discussed it way back before she started daycare. They’d decided it would be better for Morgan to socialize with kids her own age. 

Morgan, for her part, wholly disagrees.

She’s still choking down her cereal when Pepper and Tony walk into the kitchen. “You’re here,” Pepper says, surprised but pleased. “I thought you were going straight from your place to school?”

“She forgot her red sneakers,” Peter tells her, and then lowers his voice to say, “personally, I think it was a sabotage attempt, but I get the feeling we’ll never know the truth.”

“I can _hear you_ ,” Morgan snaps. “And I _don’t_ need school.”

“That’s what I thought, Maguna,” Tony tells her, ruffling her hair up as he passes. “But see, there’s this thing that happens when you don’t hang out with kids your own age—”

“You become really obnoxious and crotchety,” Peter tells her conspiratorially.

“I was going for _awkward_ ,” Tony corrects. “But yeah, basically.” 

“I’m not awkward,” Morgan argues. “I have friends.”

Peter frowns. “Who?” 

“Gwen,” she says. “And Lizzy.”

“Okay, one of those is a cat and the other one is almost three times your age,” Peter tells her. “You just proved my point for me. Now come on, get your gear, let’s move out.”

Morgan groans again. She makes a big show of shouldering the heavy, burdensome weight of her backpack, takes forever to tie her shoes, and then reluctantly says goodbye to Pepper and Tony. 

All the way down to the lobby, she chatters to FRIDAY. They go back and forth with algebraic equations, and Morgan asks random questions like, “Why does the moon have holes in it?” and “Do you believe in ghosts, Friday?” and “How small are the people in the radio?”

The way from the tower to her school isn’t very long and they have time to kill, so they walk it. Morgan directs all of her weird questions his way after they exit the building. Peter does his best to answer them while she swings their hands back and forth like she’s trying her hardest to unscrew his arm from its socket. 

Then they reach her campus and she clams up. 

“Petey…” 

Yeah, that means it’s bad. She hasn’t called him _Petey_ in weeks because she’s been so mad about this whole thing. 

Peter kneels down so they’re eye-to-eye. “You know, I was really scared too on my first day of school.”

“I’m not _scared_.”

“No? Well then you’re already better off than I was. But see, even though I was completely terrified, it went just fine. I even made a friend.”

She looks down at her red sparkly sneakers. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. And you’re like, _way_ cooler than I ever was. I bet you’ll be friends with your whole class by the end of the day.”

Morgan’s look is all disbelief and mistrust. Peter’s shoulders fall. Lying to her won’t do any good. “Alright, I’m gonna level with you: it might suck. It’ll probably be boring, and we’ve already gone over how important it is to pretend to be average because—”

“No one can know I’m Tony Stark’s daughter,” she recites, monotonous. 

“Right. You’re Morgan Richards.”

Morgan looks a little sick. Peter would literally rather pick her up and carry her away than make her go in, but they _have_ to do this. If they don’t, they never will. 

“Morgan,” he says, “it’s gonna be okay. No matter what, you’ll get through it—and if you need me—”

She holds up the little Spider-Man toy attached to her backpack. “I press his belly.”

“Right.”

“Like the Pillsbury Dough Boy.”

Peter rolls his eyes and kisses her forehead as the bell rings. “Okay, go on. Don’t burn the building down or anything.”

Morgan looks back at him at least five times on the way inside and each time, he smiles. On the inside his stomach is in knots, which is _ridiculous._ It’s kindergarten. He’s _done_ kindergarten. All they do is learn to write letters and sing about the rainbow and shit. 

She’ll be _fine._

* * *

“What are you doing?”

Miles rounds just as he’s pulling his mask over his face; he finds Gwen standing in the doorway looking like freaking Dr. Evil with the way she’s holding her cat, her eyes narrowed all suspicious and shit. 

“Uh, nothing.”

“Liar. You’re planning on going out on your own, aren’t you?”

Miles sighs all long and dramatic. “I _was_.”

“That might just be the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard—”

“And yet _you_ were the one talking about destiny and leaps of faith and stuff last week—”

“Maybe I _changed my mind_ ,” Gwen snaps. “I’m unpredictable like that. Besides, Peter… sort of made some good points.”

Miles is so done with this. Like, beyond done. All he wants to do is jump out this damn window and _swing_ , but now he has to put off Gwen or she’ll totally rat him out. So he says, “Like _what?_ ”

And Gwen is all, “You could get _hurt_ , okay? Like, I know you _think_ you’re ready, but what happens when you get in over your head? Peter’s right, dude. I think we just need to stick with the small stuff for now.”

“But I’m so sick of kitty duty!” 

“Hey!” she covers Lizzy’s ears, “not in my house, Miles Morales!”

“This _isn’t_ your house!”

Gwen rolls her eyes even though he’s absolutely right, it’s not. She’s still living with the Starks and the longer it goes on, the more he’s sure it’s a permanent solution. There’s even been talk of both of them staying at the rebuilt compound over the summer, which sounds freaking _dope_ as hell, but Aaron is barely keen on him staying at the Tower during weekends. Miles thinks maybe, just _maybe,_ he can convince him—but only if Aaron gets to visit a few times a month. He’ll have to talk to Pepper about getting him a security pass.

Gwen is glaring. “I really don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Well _I_ think it’s the greatest idea I’ve ever had,” he argues. “And maybe I’ll just do easy stuff anyways. I just want to go out, okay?”

Gwen purses her lips as she considers that. “Do you promise not to do anything super reckless or dumb? Just, like, helping old ladies and giving directions to tourists and stuff?”

Miles nods eagerly, and like an angel, she finally concedes. “Alright, I won’t tell. But I’m not _lying_ for you, either, so if he asks where you are today—”

“Yeah, yeah,” he waves that off, “thank you so much, you’re the _best!_ ”

God, this is gonna be so much fun.

* * *

“I brought you coffee.”

“Well that’s kind of you.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Peter sets his chin on Tony’s shoulder to check out what he’s working on. “Which is why I was wondering if you could do me a favour.”

Tony snorts. “You’ve been spending way too much time around Romanoff.”

_“Dad_.”

Tony sort of melts like he always does when Peter calls him that, which—okay, it’s a teeny, _tiny_ bit manipulative, but it’s for the kids so he tries not to feel too bad about it. It’s for _Ned._

“I would literally die for you,” Tony says, “but go on.”

Peter takes a deep breath. 

“So you know about the tour?”

“Tour? What tour?”

“That was a rhetorical question, don’t play dumb.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “ _Yes,_ I’m aware of the tour. Did you know, it was actually something we were setting up before the Snap? I wanted to help you get popular by showing off to all your little friends.”

Peter grins against his own will. “Really?”

“Really. Call me soft and sentimental.”

“Well,” Peter pulls up a stool beside Tony’s and clears his throat. “They’ll have access to my floors, the old Avengers wing, Bruce’s labs, our penthouse—which, yeah, is weird, but Pepper said they’d get a kick out of it so whatever—and I was _wondering_ if maybe we could add uh, floors 113-118?”

Tony sputters and drops his pliers. “ _My_ floors?”

“Yes?” 

“ _Pete_.”

“I brought you coffee,” he reminds him. 

“I’m sorry, you think a cup of coffee equates allowing a group of jam-handed children to sniff around in my lab?” 

“...Maybe?”

“ _Peter._ ”

“That’s my name.” 

Tony sighs. “I’m—I’m working on—I’ve got _stuff_ on today’s agenda—”

“Well they won’t touch anything,” Peter promises. “They’ll just look. We can even tell them not to talk, but _Tony,_ it’s why they’re coming. They want to see—”

“They want to see _you_ , kid,” Tony corrects, and Peter stills. “I might be cool, but you’re absolutely _what’s happening,_ if you catch my drift. I doubt they’ll even notice I’m there if we’re in the same room together.”

It’s weird, because he doesn’t even sound resentful about it. If anything he seems sort of proud, and maybe a little concerned. And sure, Peter knows he’s sort of, like, famous now—like, even more than when he was just Spider-Man. Now people know who _Peter Parker_ is, too. There are like, statues of him and sections of him in the newest history books. It’s completely insane. 

“That’s not true,” Peter says anyway, because it really isn’t. He smirks. “They’d notice you eventually.”

Tony snorts. “I’ve become the Where’s Waldo of inventors.”

Peter rolls his eyes. For a minute he just watches Tony calculate and readjust and assemble. 

“So was that a yes on the tour?”

Tony groans. “You’re not gonna let up on this, are you?”

“Do it for the people. Do it for _me._ I do things for you, don’t I? I even dropped off the Mongoose earlier. You can’t say I’m not a saint.”

For some reason, Tony’s mouth twists—it’s the sort of look that means something about what Peter just said has been bothering him for a while, but there’s no way in _hell_ he feels like talking about it. 

Peter only knows that because it’s the exact same expression Morgan had whenever she would wet the bed last year.

He pokes Tony’s cheek. “Spill.”

“What?”

“Something’s wrong with you.”

“Nothing’s wrong with me.”

“Uh, bull.” Peter scoots a little closer and rests his chin on his hand. “Come on, I’m a great audience.”

For a long minute Tony just sits there like he can’t quite remember how to speak, or maybe he just doesn’t know how to say what he needs to. Then it all just comes spilling out at once.

“You took Morgan to school,” he says, shooting to his feet. “That’s—that’s _my_ job, you know? That should be me. I shouldn’t be sending her off with a hug and a kiss at the door, _God._ I’ve already missed so much and I let another thing slip through my fingers! It’s ridiculous—”

“Okay, I’m gonna stop you right there. One: we all agreed it was best that I take Morgan because it would make her feel less pressured about the whole thing. Two: _no one_ blames you for what you missed. That wasn’t your fault at all.”

Tony shakes his head. “Just because you don’t blame me, doesn’t mean I don’t blame myself.”

“Well that’s stupid. Don’t do that.”

“ _Pete._ ”

“I’m serious. I swear to God, you’ve gotta stop that, because if you don’t it might actually drive me insane. _Tony_ —we wanted you there, we missed you, but we _understood._ And do you actually think Morgan is gonna resent you for not getting her swarmed by paps on her first day of school?”

Tony sinks back into his chair. He puts his face in his hands and just breathes for a minute. 

“Dad,” Peter says, quietly, “you did the right thing.”

“Doesn’t feel like it.”

“Maybe not, but it’s true. She’s safer this way, and she can be a regular kid. You have _no_ idea how much I miss just being a regular kid sometimes. Or even a kid at all. _God,_ being an adult sucks.”

Tony laughs. “You get used to it.”

“Really? God, I hope not. I was kind of just waiting for things to mellow out.”

Tony laughs even harder at that. It makes Peter laugh, too, and then they’re just two idiots cackling in a dimly lit lab, and their laugh sounds sort of the same, and Peter just feels so stupidly happy that he’s here right now. Not here instead of six floors down at R&D where he absolutely _should_ be, seeing as Mr. Harrington will be getting here in like, twenty minutes—

No. _Here._ Alive. 

He’s so fucking happy he chose to live. There’s nothing brighter than the light of their laughter, nothing makes more or less sense than this. He lets the serenity of it run through him like a shockwave, and when he wipes his eyes, he pretends the tears are from the stitch in his side and nothing else.

“You should probably—”

“Go,” Peter agrees. “Right.”

* * *

The elevator ride is weirdly silent. No music plays. Ned stands squished between Mr. Harrington and Betty, who smells pretty good at least. 

So far other than the fact that Flash’s clearance card was denied at least six times in a row before he was finally admitted, there haven’t been any hitches. Everything seems to be running smoothly in the building and even the main lobby had been quiet for once.

Then they reach floor 112. 

The elevator doors slide open and it’s like, chaos. People running in every direction, carrying equipment and books and papers; the floor is a maze of hallways and laboratories, and all the walls are see-through—borosilicate glass if Ned had to guess, because like, explosions.

There’s a lot of yelling and whirring machinery and Ned is pretty sure he even hears someone sobbing.

Then a loud, clear whistle that could only have been made by a New York native slices right through the din. Everyone freezes.

Peter is standing on a stack of plastic crates where everyone can see him. He looks, like, official and stuff. It’s so wild and _so_ cool.

“Alright everyone, listen up,” he says, “I know we’re overloaded with backorders, and I know half of the servers have been compromised—but we are _working_ on that. In the meantime I need all hands on deck to get us back on track, and I need all the interns to step it up a little. I know you’re new and I know it’s scary, but just do whatever you can: write up lab reports, organise paperwork, and please for the love of God, make sure everyone is caffeinated. We need to focus our efforts on regaining stability today, not passion projects, alright? Keener will fill you in on the rest.”

Then he steps down from his soapbox and everyone is totally nodding and they even seem a little, like, rejuvenated? Ned kind of wants to scream because _finally_ people are taking Peter seriously.

He’s accosted by a few people on his way over, but he’s spotted them. “Mr. Harrington,” he says, once he’s close enough; “I’m so sorry for all the commotion, it’s been a hectic few days. I thought it’d be settled by now but—” he shakes his head. “Anyway, unfortunately there won’t be much to see in our robotics department just now. _However,_ I’ve made a few arrangements with Mr. Stark that I think will make up for it.”

And Mr. Harrington is like, over the moon. Like, Ned has never seen him look this happy. “That sounds wonderful, Peter,” he says, and this conversation would be totally boring if it weren’t also _weirdly_ fascinating. 

“I can at least give you all a tour of the main floor,” he says. “If you’ll follow me.”

And so they trail after Peter and listen while he talks about every room and who works there and what they do; he shows them labs 1-8 but says everything beyond that point is highly confidential; there’s a conference room, a kitchenette where two interns are talking but shoot to their feet when they see Peter (which is like, the greatest thing Ned’s ever seen). 

Everyone walks shoulder to shoulder—and Betty is like, _still_ right next to him—and they all seem too afraid to speak or ask questions. They watch Peter like he’s about to turn into a freaking monster or an alien or something, like they’ve never seen him before. 

Peter, for his part, is pretty casual about the whole thing. “This is where we eat,” he says when he shows them the break room, and proceeds to snatch up some kind of energy bar. “I’m here a lot, because y’know, heightened metabolism.” 

“This is my office,” he says, letting them all peek inside the (huge) room with floor to ceiling windows and posters propped against the walls—there’s a Star Wars one that’s covered in signatures and they are _so_ having a conversation about that, later. “It’s, uh, pretty bleak. Anyway.”

The labs are like, _awesome,_ too. “This is the RPA—our Rapid Prototyping Area. It’s where the most explosions happen. Over there we have the 3D printers, laser cutting station, PCB routers, computers—and _this_ open space is the collaboration area. At first I thought it was a really innovative and, dare I say it, even a _great_ idea. Then people started getting into fist-fights. Now I think I might rope it off.”

He shrugs. 

“If you’re nerd enough, you might have noticed that the layout for our floor is designed after MIT’s science and engineering departments. We have our forge area, our glass lab—this is where everything technical takes place. Upstairs we have research labs and a lecture hall and even a little cafe. See, the thing about R&D is that we’re all here to _learn._ When you think up an idea and it works, instead of hoarding the information, you share it. There are always demos happening, and we have professors from renowned universities all over the world coming to teach us new things—those are accessible for anyone, by the way, you don’t need to be part of the department to attend.”

He says, like it’s _no big deal at all._

They go upstairs and Peter shows them the lobby, the brainstorming areas, and storage areas—where a lot of people are crammed trying to fix the broken servers. 

“We were hacked,” Peter says easily, and waves off their concerns. “No big deal, happens all the time. So far, no one’s actually broken through the firewall—the real one, not the fake one—but our servers shut off the second they’re tampered with by an outside party. It takes a while to reboot them because they all have specific access codes, but it looks like they’re making good progress.”

Peter stops. “Any questions so far?”

Literally _everyone_ raises their hand.

* * *

“And now: the part you actually care about.”

The elevator doors slide open to reveal quiet, darker hallways. Like Peter’s department, all the walls are mostly glass, and every room needs identification to enter. 

“Uh, where are we?” asks Flash.

“Oh, I didn’t mention? This is Tony Stark’s main floor.”

And Flash like, craps his pants.

Ned literally can’t breathe. This is, without a doubt, the most amazing day of his entire life. Not only was Peter’s department super cool and forward-thinking, but _this?_ Walking the same halls that Tony Stark does probably like, every _day?_

“Is he—?” Cindy Moon cuts herself off with a blush like the question is too stupid to ask out loud, but she ends up blurting it anyway; “is he _here_ right now?”

Peter grins. “Maybe.”

It’s like a funeral march. They’re all petrified and grabbing each other’s sleeves and peering into the empty rooms with wide eyes. There are tools scattered everywhere. In one really big workshop, an entire car is being restored. The engine lies dismantled off to the side.

It’s insane. Ned can totally see Tony Stark getting bored with one project and just flitting to the next one. All he has to do is walk into another room and he can push whatever he’s struggling with out of his mind. God, Ned would _die_ to live like that.

They head toward the sound of rock music. Ned only listens to like, pop, so he doesn’t recognise any of it. Peter punches in the code all totally easy and casual and _wow,_ the music is so much louder on the inside. “FRIDAY,” he says, “mute.”

Then it’s just silent. Walking inside the lab is like walking into a tomb, except it’s perfectly warm and smells like expensive cologne and spilt coffee and motor oil. Ned feels like he could fall asleep here—well, if he also didn’t feel like an army private waiting to get screamed at by a staff sergeant. 

Something beeps and they all jump, except Peter, who laughs. “Relax, guys. It’s just DUM-E.”

“Holy shit,” Flash breathes. “That’s—”

“Tony Stark’s first _ever_ AI,” Ned finishes, because they’re both too awed to find finishing each other’s sentences disgusting. 

“Don’t talk about him like that, you’ll only inflate his ego,” calls a new voice, familiar but unfamiliar, and then Tony Stark steps into view. “Well, if it isn’t the Pre-K playgroup.”

“Don’t be mean,” Peter chides.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mr. Stark waves him off and then, holy _shit,_ he looks at Ned. Even better, he _speaks_ to Ned. He’s all, “Ah, Ned Leeds, nice to see you again.”

And Ned is all, like, making pathetic squeaking noises and opening and closing his mouth like a fish, because they’d only talked _one time_ when Mr. Stark came to pick Peter up, and he’d _remembered Ned._

Eventually he says, “Uh, hi. Sir. Hello.”

Peter is totally mindless to all of them now. He’s gone into what Ned had dubbed _Scientist Mode_ when they were about thirteen: Peter does this thing where he forgets there are other people in the room, or that there’s a room at all, and his eyebrows get all scrunched up while he’s considering a problem and trying to find the solution as quickly as possible. There’s a hologram floating in neon blue above a table that Ned can’t even _begin_ to comprehend. 

Then he says, “You know, you’d have better luck if you adjusted the thrust capacity by like, point five percent.”

Mr. Stark _glares_ and Peter laughs like it’s no big deal, like he’s no threat at all. “Don’t act like you’re smarter than me in front of the children.”

“But I _am_ smarter than you.”

Mr. Stark snorts. He walks over to the hologram and squints at it for a second, and then looks back at Peter. Then he mutters, “Fuck.”

Mr. Harrington clears his throat. “Uh, pardon—”

“Mr. Harrington,” Mr. Stark cuts in smoothly, holding out his hand for their teacher to shake. “Pleasure to meet you and your little group. It’s my understanding that you’ll be nosing around the most restricted parts of the Tower today—”

“ _Tony,_ ” Peter says warningly.

“Which of course is _fine_ by me,” Mr. Stark finishes pointedly, “just, y’know, don’t break anything.”

Peter snorts, which makes Mr. Stark roll his eyes. Ned wasn’t exactly sure what he’d expected, but it wasn’t _this;_ they’re so, like, familiar with each other and stuff. Flash looks like he’s about to have a conniption. He’s looked like that all day, though, so Ned isn’t too concerned.

“ _So,_ ” Peter says. “Show them your stuff.” 

“Right, right,” Mr. Stark nods and scans the room. “Well, you’ve already met DUM-E, so I guess we’ll go upwards from least exciting—which obviously makes Peter the next exhibit—”

“ _Ha ha._ ”

“Alright, I’ll be serious. Who wants to break down the schematics of my suit with me?”

Everyone raises their hands. Flash is literally standing on his tip-toes, even though he’s totally taller than most of them. 

Mr. Stark pulls up a holographic and starts pulling apart his suit piece by piece, telling them about all of their functions and dimensions, until the AI that’s been speaking to them all day through elevators and intercoms cuts in.

“Sorry to interrupt boss, but it seems there’s been an incident at The Anderson School.”

“What, like a shooting?!” demands Cindy Moon, panicked.

“No, not like that,” Peter says. “Absolutely not.”  
  


Peter and Mr. Stark are giving each other a _Look,_ though; it’s a significant, secretive one, like this is something they absolutely can’t share with the class. 

“I’ll take care of it,” Peter says shortly.

“Hey, hey, you can’t just leave me with the munchkins—”

“Call Harley, then,” Peter snaps, putting on a jacket (because like, of course he would just have a jacket lying around in Tony Stark’s private workshop, nothing completely amazing about that). 

“I should come with—”

“You know you can’t.”

“ _Pete.”_

“ _Tony,_ ” Peter says, like it’s final, “I’m going.”

Then he’s out the door, leaving them all in stunned silence. 

Mr. Stark claps his hands together. “Well, I _suppose_ we could go look at my cars.” 

* * *

Peter races up the steps to Morgan’s school without a second thought. Thankfully the hallways are empty; it’s mid-day and classes are still in session. 

He knows the way to the principal’s office because he’s studied the layout of the school about eight-thousand times in the past month, just for peace of mind. Maybe it’s completely excessive, but it pays off now.

Morgan sits in one of those uncomfortable red plastic chairs in the waiting area, her head hung low, not even swinging her legs. Peter is in front of her in a heartbeat. “Morgie, hey, are you okay? Are you good?”

She nods slowly but won’t look at him, won’t even speak. From what he can tell she’s at least not sporting any injuries, which only calms him down a little. 

“Mr. Richards?”

It takes Peter a minute to remember that’s supposed to be him. The secretary, unlike the principal, doesn’t know his actual name. 

He’s hesitant to leave her out here, but he knows how this crap works. He’d been on Morgan’s end of it often enough with bully after bully. 

Principal West’s office is small but quaint. The walls are a calm, pale blue—the same as Morgan’s had been in what’s now May’s apartment. Principal West herself sits behind a heavy desk with another woman—Morgan’s teacher, he assumes.

“Mr. Parker,” West says, standing to shake his hand. “Thank you for coming. Go ahead and sit.”

Peter doesn’t sit.

She falters a little, but recovers. “Mr. Parker—”

“What happened?”

“There was a fight,” says Morgan’s teacher. “Between Morgan and another one of my students.”

“A fight?” It doesn’t make any _sense,_ Morgan doesn’t start fights. Sure she can be energetic sometimes, but at the most he’s only ever seen her yell. “I don’t understand—”

“Two boys were picking on another kid and Morgan got between them all. She ended up… well, she broke Elijah Henderson’s nose. It wasn’t pretty.”

Peter finally sinks into the chair. He pinches his brow. “So if I’m getting this right, she stood up to a bully and you plan on punishing her for it?”

West sighs. “Mr. Parker, school is not a battlefield, it’s a place of learning. Mr. Henderson has been disciplined already. Ms…. your sister physically assaulted another student today. That can’t go unpunished.”

Peter frowns. “Listen, I understand: no violence, I’m all for that, believe me. I’ll be talking to her about it as soon as we get home. But Mrs. West, she _stood up to a bully._ Punishing her for that sends the wrong message—”

“I assure you her suspension will be shorter—”

“It’s the _first day of spring term—_ ”

“Mr. Parker,” the teacher interrupts again, “we don’t believe that this is the school for Morgan.”

Peter leans back, stunned. “Excuse me?”

The teacher backtracks. “I’m sorry, that came out wrong. What we mean to say—what _I_ mean to say—is that I believe Morgan is… exceptional. I think she would be better suited for a more comprehensive atmosphere that caters to the gifted.”

_Fuck._

“Why is that?”

“Well from what I can tell, she’s already capable of finding _square roots._ She’s far surpassed elementary math.”

Peter pinches his brow. “Yeah?”

“ _Yes._ I asked her to multiply—god, what was it? Three-thousand and twenty-six by five-hundred and twelve. I mean, it took her about ten seconds. Could _you_ do that?”

“One-million five-hundred and forty-nine thousand, three-hundred and twelve.”

They both blink. 

Peter stands. “It’s not—she’s not gifted. It’s the Trachtenberg system.”

“Pardon?”

“Jakow Trachtenberg,” he explains. “It’s a rapid mental calculation technique.”

“I—” they exchange a look. West argues, “but she’s five!”

“I learned it when I was four.”

“Mr. Parker—”

“How long is her suspension?”

West’s shoulders fall. She looks deeply troubled. “Two days, excluding the weekend, obviously.”

“Alright,” he nods. “Okay. I’ll have her back Wednesday.”

Then he makes to leave. The secretary calls something after him, maybe _good afternoon_ or _good job raising that kid!,_ either one is pretty plausible. 

“Come on, get your backpack, we’re going,” he calls to Morgan as he passes. She startles. 

“Where?”

Peter pauses. Considers her. “Ice cream.”

Her grin is blinding.

* * *

They split a sundae. The cherry sits uneaten on a napkin to the side because they both despise them. 

“So what did we learn today?”

Morgan swallows. “...Don’t get caught?”

“Very cute, but no. Try: we don’t hit people.”

“But he was _picking_ on Matthew! And Matthew didn’t even do anything but get the question right after Elijah got it wrong! He tried to make Matthew give him his lunch and when he wouldn’t, he _spat_ on it!”

“So you punched him?”

“ _Duh._ ”

“Morgan…” God, Peter is tired. He was up until three last night helping Charlotte study for her math midterm. These days it feels like he’s running on spite and desperation alone. 

Still, he tries again. “We don’t _do_ violence, okay? We’re not about that.”

Morgan is far from impressed. “Then what about when you fight bad guys?”

“I—that’s different—”

“But _why?!_ If I see something bad happening, I should stop it, right?”

Peter stares for a second. Blinks. “God, what is this _gene_ we all have?” 

Morgan folds her arms across her chest and scowls at him. It shouldn’t be intimidating with her strawberry patterned dress and pigtails, but it’s just so _Pepper_ he dies inside a little. 

“This is so dumb. I didn’t do anything _wrong._ Elijah was the one being a jerk.”

Peter sighs. “Look, if someone hits you, you hit back, but you _never_ throw the first punch unless you’re in real danger or they’re like, a Nazi, because Nazis absolutely deserve to get knocked down 24/7. But honey, today? You didn’t need to solve it with violence. Things like this—sometimes if you can figure out how, you can just _talk_ a bully down. Use that big brain of yours, you know what I mean? _Or,_ if that doesn’t work, get a teacher.”

“But they’d call me a snitch.”

“Fuck ’em. You can only be a snitch if they’re being a bitch.”

Morgan giggles. “Mommy says you’re not supposed to use bad language words in front of me anymore.”

“Morgan, your first word was shit.”

Her face lights up. “It was?”

And he could tell her the truth right now, the thing he’s never told anyone else: that it had really been _dad,_ that she had been crying so hard her face was red and Peter had been trying to calm her, and she’d just _said it_ (and because she had, he’d literally invented time travel. Crazy stuff). 

Morgan pokes him with the cold end of her spoon. “Petey?”

For a second he just looks at her, because that’s the sort of thing that doesn’t really weird kids out yet; they just look right back twice as intense. He thinks about the fact that he’s known her all her life, watched her grow from someone so small he could hold her in one arm to _this:_ a whole person, with all these opinions and thoughts and feelings. He didn’t make her, but he sort of feels like he helped shape her. 

Peter shakes his head, drops a twenty onto the table, and slides out of the booth. “Come on, shortcake. We’ve got places to be.”

* * *

When they make it back to the Tower, the tour has apparently moved onto the Avengers section. According to Tony, Harley is leading them around spouting a bunch of bullshit about how Steve and Thor were secretly having an affair with each other for two years. 

Peter finds both Pepper and Tony in the workshop. He deposits Morgan onto the table so she can ogle the various holographics. 

“Well?”

“Two day suspension.”

“ _What?”_ Pepper demands. “What did she _do?”_

“She hit a kid.”

“And what did _you_ do?”

“Petey got me ice cream,” Morgan pipes up, like a helpful little demon.

Tony and Pepper both round on him. It’s pretty convenient timing that right at that very second he gets the Emergency Spider Alert: Code MORALES—which means that Miles is basically like, dying right now.

“Oh, shit, I gotta go!”

“Peter!”

“Sorry! Love you! Bye!”

* * *

“That was like, the most amazing day of my whole life,” Betty gushes, and Ned is too deep in his own head to notice she’s talking to him.

_Him,_ Ned Leeds, the biggest nerd at Midtown now that Peter’s gone.

“Uh, what?”

Betty rolls her eyes like this is some kind of routine of theirs, like they talk like this every day. She even gives him a familiar, friendly little shove. 

“You’re probably still reeling from Mr. Stark’s demo, huh?”

Actually, he’s not—it had been way, _way_ cool, but the thing that’s actually bothering Ned is something he can’t talk about. The truth is, he’s worried about Peter. His face had been totally white when he’d run out of the tour and Ned is pretty sure it’d had to do with his little sister. 

Betty’s brows are knit. “Ned? Are you okay?”

“What? Yeah, uh, I’m fine.” 

She doesn’t seem convinced and even glances at the rest of their group like she’s seeking out Mr. Harrington to tell him Ned’s not well. But then she turns back to him with a new determination.

“Tell you what: when we’re all leaving the building, how about you and I sneak off and go get like, ice cream or pizza or something?”

Him.

Betty Brant.

Ice cream. 

Him and Betty Brant and ice cream.

“I—are you sure?”

She shrugs. “A little rebellion never hurt anyone, right?”

* * *

“I’m just saying—”

“No, honey, _I’m_ just saying,” Tony cuts across, “that there’s no way in _hell_ we’re enrolling her in a prep school—”

Pepper sighs. They’ve been at it for about half an hour, ever since Morgan had fessed up to what they’ll no doubt be dubbing ‘the Incident’ in future conversations— _that_ coupled with what Friday had relayed (a message from the principal urging them to reconsider), has caused a blowout of gigantic proportions.

_Good thing the tour is over,_ Pepper thinks wryly. 

“This isn’t something you get to just put your foot down over. She’s _our_ daughter, and what’s more—”

Pepper stops.

There’s a heavy, pregnant pause. 

“What was that?” Tony asks.

“I…”

“No, no, please,” he steps closer, eyes dark, “go on. You were about to say that you raised her on your own for five years, right? Which obviously means I should have no say in her life, I mean, it’s not like I’m her _father_ or anything.”

“Tony, that is _not_ what I meant.”

“Well what else could you have been trying to say—?”

“You’re twisting my words!”

“There’s nothing to twist!” Tony yells. “It’s what you think, isn’t it? That you should be making all the executive decisions here because _I wasn’t there,_ because you know her better, because everything she is right now is a result of _your_ parenting alone. Am I right?”

“ _No._ ”

Tony shakes his head. “This is about what’s best for her—”

“ _Exactly._ ” Pepper stands up. “We need to put her in an environment where she can thrive! If we keep her in the school she’s in now, she’ll go stagnant!”

“You have _no idea_ what it’s like!” 

Another pause: heavy breathing, his body bending over to grip the kitchen counter. He shakes his head. 

“You don’t know what it’s like to be raised like some prized cattle and milked for everything you’re worth, Pep. Those schools… they _kill_ you. It’s constant, it’s consuming, the expectations…” 

“Tony—”

“I know, okay? I know I’m not my father and it would be different for her, I know she would have more support, but she _doesn’t_ need this right now. She’s just a _kid,_ Pep. Can’t we just let her be a kid for a little while longer? Wasn’t that the point of all of this in the first place?”

Pepper lays her hand on his shoulder and just like that, all the tension drains right out of him. He sags against the counter and puts his head in his hands. 

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry.”

“Yeah?” He glances at her. “Feels like I do.”

Pepper threads her fingers through his hair. It’s greying just a tiny bit. If he’d lived, she’s sure it would be all grey by now. Stress can do that. Grief. 

“You want to make her happy,” she says softly. “There’s nothing wrong with that. She’s… Peter can tutor her. And you. We don’t have to push her.”

He nods. 

“Tony.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you really think that?”

Muffled, he asks, “Do I really think what?”

“Do you really think,” and here, she has to just breathe, sharp and painful, as her eyes begin to burn; “do you really think that because you weren’t there, you don’t have a say?”

His response is too quick, to reassuring. “No, I don’t. It’s fine, I’m fine, okay? It was just… heat of the moment stuff.”

“ _Tony._ ”

“Listen, everything is okay, alright? It was irrational and I shouldn’t have said it and—”

“Tony, I never want you to feel like what we’re doing here isn’t equal. I need you to know that I’m in this _with_ you, okay? We’re doing this _together._ ”

He nods but Pepper knows that won’t convince him alone. He lost five years of partaking in the big decisions, lost five years of being a part of Morgan’s life. She only knows the other side of it: to be without him, what it was like to do it alone—well, not alone, really. She’d had Peter and Rhodey. 

“I know that,” he says, “I do.”

There is an unspoken ‘but’: _it still feels that way sometimes._ Pepper just absorbs it the way she has so many things, pins it for another time—something to keep in mind at all hours, really. Something to always be considering in every interaction until things boil over, until she can fix it.

“Are you guys done yelling?”

Pepper’s stomach sinks. Morgan’s peeking her head around the corner, eyes wide. But not red like she’s been crying. Maybe she doesn’t know what to think of it all: Pepper remembers the initial denial of being a child whose parents tore one another apart. For her, though, it had been daily, it had been a shadow that loomed over her shoulder until she was fifteen standing above her own father’s casket.

“We are, baby,” she assures, and promises herself _I will do better._ It’s a promise she’s made herself a thousand times before: when Morgan was a newborn and colicky and it had been Peter who’d recognised the symptoms and not her; when Peter had first come to live with her and instead of comforting him as he sobbed himself to sleep at night, she’d kept a careful distance because she was _so_ afraid of being pushed away; when Peter had bent himself over backwards trying to reverse the Snap and she had turned a blind eye to his drained, abused appearance. _I will do better. I can do better than this. I’m better than this._

* * *

16 HOURS LATER

The steady beeping of machinery greets Miles as he wakes. 

They aren’t the sounds he usually associates with morning and he tenses where he lays. The blanket he’s beneath is thin and scratchy and the air smells like… 

A hospital.

Just like that it comes back to him: the woman he’d been trying to save from the mugger, her panicked sobs, the sound of a gunshot ripping through the air faster than he could dodge, and then the heat as the blood pooled out and around his body. He’d webbed the wound to staunch it, but it hadn’t been enough. Miles had been stumbling through that back alley when the world went dark. 

He opens his eyes and of course, there’s Peter.

He doesn’t look happy. 

In fact, he looks equal parts exhausted and pissed off. Miles turns to stone and just _waits_ while Peter stares at him, consideringly, like he’s trying to decide whether to carve Miles up into tiny pieces or maybe push him out the nearest window.

Finally he breaks the silence with, “You almost died.”

Miles swallows. He doesn’t like the way that sounds. Doesn’t like the cold shiver that runs down his spine because it’s _true_ ; he’d felt himself slipping away, felt the black closing around him ready to steal his last breath. He came close— _too_ close.

“I—”

Peter stops him with a raised hand and then leans back, folding his legs almost casually. He’d look pretty chill if he weren’t scowling. 

“What I want to know,” he says, “is really just what the hell you were thinking?”

“She was being _robbed—_!”

Peter’s _look_ is enough to make the words wither in his throat. He shifts, all pent up anger, and says, “We’ve talked about the rules ad—” a breath, “at length. You and me. You and me _and_ Gwen, all together. Multiple times. I didn’t imagine those conversations, did I?”

“No,” Miles admits sheepishly.

“ _No._ Which means you’re well-aware of the fact that you are _not_ supposed to go out on your own. You’re _not_ supposed to put your life at risk, you’re _not_ supposed to go charging into situations you can’t handle.”

“So what _was_ I supposed to do?! I mean, I know I shouldn’t have gone out in the first place—”

“You _call_ me,” Peter snaps. “You know that. The only reason you _didn’t_ is because you knew I would be pissed off!”

“And you are.”

“And I am!”

They both like, sulk for a minute. Peter is breathing hard like he’s trying to calm himself down, like the last thing he wants to be doing right now is _this:_ scolding Miles for being irresponsible and stupid and almost getting himself killed.

Which is, like, valid, but also he’d _saved a lady from being mugged and almost died,_ can’t he catch some slack?

Peter taps his fingers against the armrest of his chair. “We can’t save people if we don’t know _how_ to save them. I’m not trying to put up roadblocks for fun, Miles. I’m doing it for your own good.”

“I get that.”

“ _Do_ you? Because it seems like you’re doing everything you can to go around them instead! And I can’t help you learn when you’re not listening to me, okay? I can’t help you learn if you’re dead.”

Miles looks away. There’s a window all along the right wall displaying the city skyline against a black sky. He’s not sure if it’s real or fake, but it’s peaceful. Familiar. Reminds him of the days his dad would take him out onto the roof of their complex, and they would watch the golden headlights of dozens of cars drift across the Brooklyn Bridge. They’d share a soda and talk about all the things they refused to bring up in the daylight. In the dark it was safe, next to his dad with the whole sky above him. The problems couldn’t really be that big when he was so small, right?

Miles feels his eyes burn. Frustrated, he grips the sheet and only realises it’s beginning to singe when Peter’s hand closes around his own. He winces with the static shock Miles tries to reign in.

“Miles,” Peter says, softer now, “I don’t want you to get hurt. Do you understand that? It’s the absolute _last_ thing I want. Seeing you like that… I got scared. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“I’m sorry for sneaking around and lying,” Miles returns.

Peter nods. “We’ll do more, okay? No more training wheels, but _only_ when I’m with you.”

Miles tries not to look _too_ happy about that. 

“You’re just a kid,” Peter goes on, serious. “You can’t save everyone, and no one expects you to. But do you know something?”

“What?”

“I’m _so_ proud of you for trying to anyway, Miles.”

* * *

Three weeks later and Peter is in the middle of a lecture on methods of time travel when Nat slinks into the hall. It’s dark but the projector lights her face. She doesn’t look happy, but she lets him go on for another ten minutes or so. 

“We need to talk,” she finally whispers to him, back turned to the students.

“Oh great,” he mutters, “just when I was starting to look dignified. Uh, okay, we’re gonna have to finish this some other time, people! If you have any questions feel free to direct them to my personal secretary, Harley Keener!”

“Funny,” Nat says. 

She doesn’t look amused. 

“You don’t look amused.”

Nat holds up a file. It’s thick. When he tries to grab it she pulls it away. “Not yet. Come on.”

She leads him to the elevators and presses the button for 100—the Avengers level. Peter’s confusion lasts as long as the walk to the conference room where Tony, Pepper, May, and (most surprisingly) Bucky Barnes are waiting. 

It’s… tense.

Peter raises an eyebrow at Nat. “Um, what?”

“Just sit.”

“Not until you tell me what the hell is going on.”

“It concerns Maria Petrov.”

Peter’s jaw clenches. He sits, albeit reluctantly.

“I’m sorry,” Pepper cuts in, “ _who_ is Maria Petrov?”

“My mother.”

All eyes fall on Peter. He tries to stay casual, even when May reaches for him and asks, “Peter, honey, _what_ are you talking about?”

It’s too much to explain and he doesn’t even know the half of it. “Just—Nat, go ahead.”

“Alright. Where do you want me to start?”

“From the top, I suppose.”

“Fine. Your maternal great-grandfather was Ivan Petrov, a goat farmer on the outskirts of Sortavala. He was a soldier for the USSR and served during the Winter War, but your great-grandmother, Nadine… well, you know how it goes,” she shrugs, “boy meets girl, boy falls in love, boy deflects from the army and settles down nice and neat. Tries to blend in.”

Nat’s mouth twists. “But your great-grandmother… wasn’t a regular woman. She was Finnish, the daughter of some rich General Major. She’d been captured by the USSR and apparently, they were experimenting on her for a while. She and your great-grandfather both ran away. Sort of seemed like they’d get their happy ending together. They had a daughter, Svetlana, who did well enough in school until she had to drop out after getting pregnant.”

She slides a paper toward him—a birth certificate, faded with age. “Maria Petrov,” Peter reads aloud, and just saying her name makes shivers run down his spine.

“Svetlana died giving birth to her. Your great-grandparents took it upon themselves to raise Maria. She ended up ostracized by the entire town. There was talk of ‘behavioral irregularities’.”

Peter looks up. “It was more than that, though.”

“She had… abilities. Most likely a result of whatever testing was conducted on your great-grandmother. HYDRA believed the genetic mutation was recessive; it skipped Svetlana, but Maria was stuck with it—”

“And it skipped me—”

“But any children you have could potentially…” Nat trails off. Clears her throat. “Anyway, shit hit the fan one day in 1986. Maria was out helping Ivan with the herd when something must have set her off. She killed him.”

Peter’s blood runs cold. “On purpose, or…?”

Nat shrugs. “We’ll probably never get an answer to that. Didn’t seem to matter much to Nadine. She ended up selling Maria off to the KGB through a friend. She probably thought they’d traffic her and be done with it, but instead she ended up in the Red Room.”

“Jesus,” Peter mutters.

“I’m sorry,” May shakes her head. “You’re saying that Mary was a—a _Russian spy?”_

“It’s a lot more complicated than that,” Nat tells her, softly, kindly. “Maria— _Mary—_ she fought for our side in the end.”

There’s something in her tone that makes Peter go rigid. “You were close with her.” 

“She was the best of us until she left. Everyone wanted to be better than her, everyone was afraid of crossing paths with her. When she took me under her wing, it saved my life.”

Peter leans back and considers that. “She told me she left the Red Room before the graduation ceremony.”

Tony leans forward and finally speaks. “Pardon, did you just say she _told_ you?”

Oh boy.

Peter sighs. “When I was… _dead, dying,_ uh, I saw things. People. Spoke to them. My mother was one of those people. She explained the basics of things, but I have a feeling she glossed over a lot of it. I think she was afraid of me knowing the rest. Even her letter doesn’t make sense knowing what I do now.”

May’s brow scrunches. “You’re saying you don’t think…?”

“Oh, no, that’s just a fact at this point. But the context of the situation—the whole thing being an accident, her being invited by a friend… I don’t buy it. I think she went with some kind of intent.”

Pepper clears her throat. “You’re saying you think she purposefully got pregnant by my husband?”

“That’s a little territorial of you, Pep.”

Her shoulders sag. “I’m sorry, it’s just… this is _a lot_ to take in, okay?”

“Oh, this isn’t even the half of it,” Nat says dryly. 

“Barnes, you’re suspiciously quiet,” Tony pipes up. “Why don’t you enlighten us as to how on _Earth_ your presence is necessary for this intimate family discussion?”

“Dad, don’t. He has every right to be here.”

“Okay,” Tony says slowly. “ _How?”_

“I trained her,” Bucky says, like he’s remembering it for himself _right now._ “I was… she was like my daughter…?”

There’s a pause. 

“Well, that’s weird,” Tony says.

“It’s true,” Nat counters. “Mary was his understudy for a while.”

“What else?” Peter asks, because he knows there’s more. He knows they’ve barely scratched the surface here and the history of Maria Petrov is long and bloody. 

“After she managed to escape the Red Room, she was desperate. She ended up working in a… brothel, I guess you could call it. One night this group of big bads rents her out with the intent to, uh—” Nat winces, “break her in. Didn’t work out their way.”

Tony squints. “What’d she do?” 

“She killed all of them. Well, all but one. I’m sure you guys remember Alexander Pierce?”

“ _Oh my god,”_ Pepper breathes, horrified. 

Peter for his part can’t give way to the horror, can’t let the fear in. He works his jaw and asks, “He recruited her?”

“Yes. She performed many missions for him over the course of about two years, a few of which were in collaboration with Barnes, here. You remember any of them?”

Bucky is scowling down at the table, his flesh arm braced around his vibranium one like he’s trying to keep it from lashing out. 

“I think… something about Saint Petersburg. The details are fuzzy.”

Peter chews on that. Looks at Nat again. “Then what?”

“Then she met Richard Parker. He was an undercover SHIELD agent—”

“Woah woah, time out,” May leans forward. “No way. Richard was a _geneticist—_ ”

“He was. Worked for a big corporation, nine to five but sometimes had to stay overnight for big projects, other times had to leave the country for research or conventions?”

May swallows. “Yes.”

“Yeah. Those were actually missions. He was one of their top scientists, but he was also a damn good marksman. I’m pretty sure he and Clint worked together a few times back in the day.”

“So he convinced her to join SHIELD?”

“Pretty much. From what I gather, Fury wanted him to study her, figure out how to neutralise her abilities. Guess they got closer than intended. From there on she was pretty clean. When she was Mary Parker, anyway. Did she happen to tell you about the Viper?”

Peter closes his eyes. “It wasn’t just a name, was it?”

“No. Pierce had built in protocols similar to those of the Winter Soldier. Wipes, trigger words, that sort of thing.”

“So she was still working for them even when she didn’t know it.”

Nat nods. “No one knew. The Viper was… talented. Elusive.”

“She became a target.”

Nat’s voice gets even smaller. “Yes, she did.”

“They would have tasked one of their best agents to take her out.”

“They would have.”

Peter meets her eyes. Grey, blue. Once they’d been cold and calculating to him but now they’re only sorry, wide open and overflowing with regret. 

She doesn’t have to say it. 

“Jesus Christ, Nat.”

“Peter, I’m sorry—”

“Don’t.” He stands and looks away, shaking, so fucking _sick._ Of course, fucking _of course._ It just had to be her. The universe gives and then takes, isn’t that what he’d told Miles? The losses come and you rebuild and then you take more hits. You can’t _trust_ anyone, you can’t _rely_ on anyone. They will only die, they will only betray you, they will only disappear. 

“Peter—”

“Just—” he holds up a hand, “just give me a second to absorb this, okay?”

The rest of them are sitting in stunned silence. Maybe their minds are quiet too. 

His isn’t. His is _screaming._

“Peter,” Nat goes on anyway, “they’d been using her for _years_ and she had no idea. I thought she had—I didn’t know enough about it. Fury told me she’d deflected and I was assigned to take her out—”

“And you just _did it?_ Even when you _knew_ what she’d come from—”

“Of course! That’s _why_ I was so easily convinced!”

Peter closes his eyes. He can’t be here. He can’t be in the same room as her and he sure as hell can’t bear witness to what everyone else will have to say. He doesn’t want to look at their faces—at May’s face, confused and furious and fearful—and see himself there. 

“I think I need to go.”

Pepper shoots out of her chair. “Peter—”

“No. I, uh… I’ll be back. I just can’t… I can’t be here right now. I’m sorry.”

* * *

“Bucky—hey, are you okay?”

No, Bucky is not okay. Bucky is far from it. In fact, just now he doesn’t feel much like _Bucky_ at all; his thoughts are having trouble keeping up with the times. He’s not sure—is it 1985 or 1939? Why is Steve so big?

He’s real, that’s for sure: those hands that should be small and delicate touch him, close around him. No one is supposed to touch him, but Steve was _never_ supposed to and he did it anyway, so he can’t bring himself to say no. Besides, it feels good. 

“Bucky,” Steve says again, softly, “hey, are you with me?”

“I’ve done bad things,” is all he can think to say. “A lot of them.” 

Steve’s expression is nothing short of agony. He’s just _crushed,_ eyes filling with tears and the word ‘no’ falling from his mouth, over and over. He cups Bucky’s cheeks and rests their foreheads together and he is a broken dam, needing Bucky just as much as Bucky needs him.

“Stevie,” Bucky whispers, the way some people say ‘sweetie’; he threads his fingers through Steve’s hair (it’s getting a little longer. He’ll need to visit the barber soon). “Sweetheart, look at me.”

And Steve who has been trying to stay strong for so long, who has vehemently denied all of Bucky’s claims to the Winter Soldier’s crimes, who has held him after a hundred flashbacks, finally _sees:_

Bucky did those things with his own two hands. He _remembers_ some of them. He remembers their dying screams, he remembers the way they’d cried, or the way they’d only barely registered what was to come before it was upon them. A sentence, signed and sealed, delivered unwaveringly. 

It’s pretty typical that in this moment when Bucky is expecting Steve to give up, to admit defeat, that he does just the opposite. 

Steve wraps Bucky all up in him, warm body and hard muscle and heart. His beard tickles the side of Bucky’s neck and his lips are soft when they press against his temple. 

_What a stubborn asshole,_ Bucky thinks, and laughs.

“What?” Steve asks.

“Nothing, I just…” he smiles. “I keep waiting for you to stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Defending me? Bending over backwards to protect me?”

_Loving me?_

“Well you’ll be waiting a while then.”

Bucky snorts. He lets his head fall against Steve’s shoulder. It’s peppered with sawdust from whatever he’s been working on all morning; makes him smell good, like pine. He’s so nice to come home to. 

Steve leads him into the back of the shop and pours him a cup of coffee. They sit at a workbench. Bucky scans the disarray; scraps of wood and scattered tools on his side, and a dismantled Ford 1966 on Bucky’s. The space is pretty big so the mess doesn’t look too bad. 

Steve nudges his shin. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

Bucky crowds into himself a little. “I don’t know.”

“You sure? I’ve been told I’m a pretty damn good listener.”

It’s not that he doesn’t trust Steve with it, it’s more that Bucky can barely parse it all together in his head. There are only little moments, brief flashes: a girl with light brown hair spinning in a circle over and over until she got dizzy and fell. Another girl, one with red hair, throwing knives at a picture of the U.S. President. Both of them sitting in front of him on polished marble steps, lips pouted delicately, so fucking _small_ but so fucking _dangerous_ too. 

He’d made them that way. 

“Can you just,” he shifts, frowns, “can you just tell me something good? I just need to get outta my own head for a minute.”

Steve considers that. He hums, a finger tracing the rim of his mug. “Do you remember that day you fell into that snow bank? I tried to go in after you, but you said no. Said there was no sense in both of us dying. You told me to just leave you there to freeze.”

“You didn’t listen, did you?”

“No.” Steve smiles all reminiscent and gentle, like he’s looking right into this stretched, stone husk and finding Bucky— _his_ Bucky. “I found a rope and fished you out. You were so embarrassed, you didn’t talk for hours. You just sat there sulking in front of the stove, so I kept on talking until you got so mad you had no choice but to sock me in the mouth.”

And Bucky _laughs._ It startles him because it doesn’t hurt, it isn’t forced; it’s loud and kind of maniacal, and he thinks, _this is how I used to laugh,_ and Steve is looking at him like he just hung the stars in the sky. 

“I remember that,” Bucky says, because he does now. Steve had been knocked back into his Ma’s bed and Bucky had climbed on top of him, started tickling and whacking him until they were both hollering so loud the neighbors knocked on the walls. 

He relaxes a little, because for all the bad things there are a thousand moments just like that one. Steve makes everything brighter, makes everything else go away. 

* * *

“You think he’s okay?”

May accepts the steaming cup of tea Tony hands her with a snort. “Him? Are _you?”_

Tony deposits himself on the bottom most step with a grunt. They face the penthouse, which has been thoroughly Pepper-ified in the past few months; there are more knit throw blankets and candles dotting the space than Tony knows what to do with anymore. He supposes that’s just part of getting old, though: caring more about comfort than aestheticism.

“I’m fine,” he says, without considering the question.

“Yeah?” 

He looks over and finds a raised eyebrow, because May Parker is nothing if not the world’s greatest Feelings Detective. 

She bumps her shoulder to his. “You looked pretty angry.”

_Angry_ isn’t what he’d expected. Maybe _shaken._ Maybe _concerned._ But angry? 

Had he been?

Is he now?

Tony rubs at his aching temples. “I don’t know. I’m just…”

“Just what?”

“Just trying to piece it together in my head, you know? Because the way it went… I don’t remember much of it. I hate to say it, but it’s true. I don’t know if she was upset that night, or throwing herself at me. I don’t know if she even _wanted_ to be there.”

“ _Tony..._ ”

“No, really, think about it: Nat says they’d been switching her on and off for who knows how long, right? So what if that night we were together… God, I don’t know what I’m saying.”

“No? Makes sense to me.”

“What, that a person would have to be brainwashed to wanna get with me?”

May rolls her eyes. “I just meant I understood what you were getting at, is all. But she remembered it was you, right? She named you in the letter.”

“She did.”

“ _So,_ odds are she was in her own head that night.” May purses her lips and sets her tea aside. “I knew Mary better than any of you, okay? And she was bright, and funny, and so sweet. I mean, you wouldn’t know it if you didn’t _really_ know her, because there were all of these rough edges and layers and—” she shakes her head. “What I’m trying to say is, she was complicated. We had a pretty good idea that she’d been through a lot and we respected the fact that she didn’t want to talk about it, but _never_ in my wildest dreams did I _ever_ imagine…”

May trails off. Her eyes go distant, tracing the lit up skyline through the windows. Tony waits for her to finish the thought and then gives up, because he doesn’t think it has an end.

It’s a mystery that will go on forever unanswered. 

“I tried doing memory retrieval therapy.”

May starts a little. “What?”

“Yeah. Last month. Don’t know why. Guess I just wanted something to… offer Pete, maybe? Or maybe I did it for me. I don’t know. I got—I got one piece back. Not much, but I guess I was pretty cross faded. Anyway, I just have this picture of her in my head—her hair was up in this complicated… _thing_ … I don’t know what you’d call it. Just pretty. She had these big brown eyes, and I… I remember her _laughing.”_

They both fall silent. 

May takes his hand. 

“She was a good person.”

Tony nods. It’s true, it’s gotta be, because he’s a far sight from good and Peter is… the best person he’s ever known. Must’ve gotten that from somewhere, right?

“You wanna stay here? Wait for the kid?”

“That’d be nice but, uh,” she shrugs, “I have a feeling if there’s anyone he’s gonna want to be with, it’s MJ.”

* * *

“A bar? Really?”

“I’m drowning my sorrows,” Peter replies without even looking up. There’s a glass of scotch on the rocks in front of him. The little red napkin beneath is marked with a ring of condensation. 

Nat takes a cautious seat. She waits a minute, wondering if he’ll knock that drink back and then storm out. 

He doesn’t move.

A little bit of tension eases off her back.

“You want to talk about it?”

“What’s to talk about?” He sips the drink. “We’re family.”

Nat winces. “You’re really about to chalk this up as a familial dispute?”

He glances in her general direction and then looks away. Finishes the drink and signals for another. Nat wonders how many he’s already had.

“My sister killed my mother, my mentor is my father, my daughter is my sister, what else is new?”

“Funny.”

He finally turns. Looks her dead on, and Nat is surprised to see… nothing. 

It’s not that he’s _feeling_ nothing. The _feeling_ is evident in where they are right now and the fact that he chose her favorite drink to get wasted on; but he is perfectly guarded, his mask is impeccable. She’d be proud if it didn’t hurt so much. 

“What were her last words?”

“‘Kill me,’” Nat quotes, slowly, achingly, “‘please.’”

A little piece chips away as his jaw tightens. “Where?”

“We were on a HYDRA freighter inbound for London.”

He nods slowly. “A plane crash.”

“Yes.”

“Was Richard there?”

“Yes.” Nat swallows. “She killed him. Then I killed her.”

“Why?”

“She… it was almost like she was glitching. She kept saying things that didn’t make any sense. She would go from Russian to English to Latin and back again, and every time it was like she was a different person. She shot Richard three times in the chest and when she realised what she’d done, she begged me to end it. Said there was nothing left.”

Peter frowns. “Nothing left?”

“Something she told me once. We crossed paths on separate missions and met up in one of those little truck stop diners. She told me it didn’t matter which side I fought for, either way they would bleed me dry until there was nothing left.”

Peter is quiet for a minute. Then, “Do you think that’s true?”

“No,” Nat replies honestly. “This job gave me everything I have. But it was true for her. She could never have gone on like that.”

“Bucky did.”

“Bucky is a special circumstance. He had someone from before who came after him. Mary…”

“She had you.”

“She never had me, Petya. I had _her._ ”

They sit for a long minute in silence. Peter frowns. “I can’t believe my great-grandfather was a Russian goat farmer.” 

That startles a laugh out of Nat. He starts to smirk, and then they’re both laughing. “It’s not funny,” he argues.

“It’s a little funny.” 

“I bet you were making it up,” he says, just because he’s a petulant little shit. 

“I wasn’t.”

“Were so.”

Nat hesitates. “Why are you still here?”

Peter looks over, startled. “What?”

“Why are you talking to me? Why even give me the time of day?”

He frowns. “It’s like you said, you didn’t know.”

“But I still—” 

“Shut up.”

“So you’re not gonna cut me out?”

“Nah.” He glances at his arm, where the tattoo is, and smirks, “laser removal surgery’s too expensive.”

Nat risks a quick kick to his knee. Then she steals his drink. “So you forgive me?”

Peter snorts. Scans the shelves of multi-colored bottles full of brown and amber liquid. Turns to her. “Whoever you used to be, whatever you believed in… you’re not the same. You’ve changed and that’s what matters. You were just a soldier following orders because you wanted to get into good standing with Fury. I get it.”

“Do you? Because it sounds like you’re trying real hard to convince yourself.”

“God, _why_ do you do that? It’s like you _want_ people to push you away.”

Nat shrugs. “Helps me root out fake friends.”

“Like I could just give you the cold shoulder after _everything_ we went through together?”

The question isn’t meant to be so loaded, but it falls out of his mouth clumsily, heavily, and his eyes shine under the dim lights of the bar. Nat finds herself reaching out. He doesn’t flinch away. 

“Well, this is cozy.”

Nat glances over her shoulder. Lazily she says, “Barnes.”

James nods at her, and then at Peter. He sits beside him and orders a beer. 

“Rough day.” 

Peter shrugs. “Had worse.”

Barnes nods. He meets Nat’s eyes and asks a silent question: _you good, Natalia?_

She smirks. _Everything is okay._

It will be. She’ll fight tooth and nail to make it so. 

Suddenly Peter straightens. He squints at Barnes, almost like he’s sizing him up. “Hey, Bucky… do you happen to have a lot of free time on your hands?”

Bucky shrugs. “A sizeable amount.”

Peter glances at Nat and then back at Barnes. “You wanna help us train the kids?”

* * *

It’s raining when the front door swings wide open and Peter stumbles inside. MJ barely looks up from her book when she asks, “You drunk?”

“Teeny bit.” He kicks the door shut and winces. “Kids asleep?”

“Sleepover at Rachel’s,” MJ replies. “Whoever the fuck Rachel is.”

Peter snorts as he strips his jacket off. His shirt is soaked too and it’s kind of funny watching him try to wriggle out of it. MJ sets her book aside— _A Room of One’s Own—_ and just kind of sits back to enjoy the ‘Peter is a Worm’ show.

By the end of his struggle he’s out of breath. He practically falls over himself to get to her, and then leans his head back against the couch. 

“How was your day?” he asks, weakly grappling for her hand. 

MJ returns to her book. “Stressful.”

“That’s nice, dear.”

“How about you?”

“Terrible.”

“That’s nice, dear.” 

She turns a page. He makes a snorting noise like he’s trying not to fall asleep. MJ weighs her options and asks, “How drunk are you, scale of one to ten?”

“Mmm? Scale of what?”

She grins. “So you probably wouldn’t even like, register it if I told you I’m pregnant?”

Peter’s eyes are closed. “That’s nice, dear,” he mumbles, and falls asleep. 

“God, you’re an idiot.”

**Author's Note:**

> i lich rally love you all so much, thank u for reading and motivating me to write this <3 pls lmk what u thought! (and also what you’d wanna see next)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * ["Ned"ward Leed's Wacky Life](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21648532) by [screamignrodent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamignrodent/pseuds/screamignrodent)




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